Spring, at last we’ve arrived at Gatelightning. The hills are covered with ant nests and we can see both crocodiles and alligators in the river, better get inside quickly…

Been here a couple of days and still having trouble finding my way around there are passages running off at all directions connecting mines and workshops to the main living areas with confusing and narrow multi level passages. Had to follow one of the forge operators around for a day just to find the forges and smithies which seem to be well supplied with steal and coke. Still I’ve got a bad feeling about this place.

The Hordemaster has been complaining about not having an office, seemed to think that was a good reason not to count properly. We’ve made a deal, he’ll keep an accurate record of the fortress’ supplies in return for a room near the Dungeon Master’s quarters. Should be quiet there the Dungeon Master seems to spend all his time sleeping.

Another disturbing sign, a wrestler named Laylor spends his time wandering about wheezing and passing out every now and then apparently some injury to his lungs round with his punctured lung and falling unconscious. I’ve also sound a graveyard full of dwarven bones. Told the miners to start carving out some catacombs in between exploratory shafts into the mountain, at least they’re efficient.

More demands, the Dungeon master has his heart set on an electrum cabinet after a talk with the forge operators it seems we don’t even have the alloy components let alone any electrum.. this can’t end well.

There was lots of snickering when we heard a caravan of elves was arriving. Not sure why, I’ve told the miners to work on a modest tomb for myself, just in case.

Disaster! The horde master reports there’s only 15 units of drink left. I don’t know what the previous overseers did but if we don’t brew more soon we’re doomed!

After a quick check in the kitchens we’ve found someone ordered the cook to cook all the drink. Worse we’re now out of beer, there’s no barrels to brew more and there’s not even any wood to make more. Time for desperate measures! We’re going up!

What a mess, things went wrong from the start. Half the party was sick from sunlight or perhaps impending sobriety when we emerged on the surface and the ground around the entrance was soon covered with vomit, confused dwarves stumbled off in all directions while the carpenters were cutting trees, some driven so mad by lack of booze they tried to drink from the river only to be attacked by alligators and crocodiles, others ran from the guards to try and grab clothing and armor left behind by dead goblins and caravans. After a brutal fight with several dwarves killed the guard Olon managed to distract an alligator by throwing her baby at it and then killing it and a crocodile while they were eating allowing the rest of the party to stagger back inside.

Desperate for wood we used Zakharry’s flushing system on the elves so we could take the logs on their pack mules. Sadly poor Onol the Engineer was too slow to clear the passage and got trapped with the elves, the screams were awful, still we knew he’d rather drown then spend another day sober. The carpenter is busy making a new batch of barrels now.

Sarvesh the blacksmith was struck by a fey mood and went to the forge where he’s been shouting about leather for days. We tried telling him there was a pile in the stores but it made no difference and he eventually fell into a deep depression refusing to eat or drink. We found him weeks later starved to death in one of the mine shafts.

It seems the former overseer Kazik Lendorium built his own chambers and locked himself away no one is sure what became of him but the noises through the rock stopped one day. The others all say he’d probably want to be left there rather than be placed in the growing catacombs .. so many bodies. [Kazik starved to death, not sure how it happened there was food in there with him, first I heard of it was the message he was dead]

I’ve decided on a tasteful little waterfall in my tomb, I can feel the sound of carp splattering on the rocks below will sooth my eternal rest.

Zakharry organized party for his friends, a good thing too after the recent losses.

The miners have reported striking gold, looks like those exploratory shafts paid off. The forge operators have been told to turn it into something useful.

Another dwarf gone strange! I was worried at first when they told me it was Dodok the leatherworker but it seems he managed to find the stores of leather and in short order produced a cow leather coat somewhat morbidly decorated with elf bone.

Athel Rulnil was hauling a gold statue into my new tomb when a dwarf-eating carp leapt from the waterfall and went for his throat. They both tumbled into the drainage tunnel below and we could hear the epic battle between dwarf and fish echoing up over the roar of falling water. Athel finally managed to corner the dread fish in the shallow end of the tunnel and air drown it before finally collapsing from blood loss. He’ll be missed, someone else had to finish installing the statue.

A unit of goblins armed with maces managed to sneak into the entrance hall when we let the dwarven liaison and merchants in. They surround Ilral Likotducim before he realized what was happening. The poor dwarf was beaten to death before we could act. Luckily Thob the legendary swords-dwarf ran straight to the scene and killed not only the mace goblins but also a second ambush by spear goblins single handedly.

We traded for more wood and booze with the dwarves but they were ambushed as they tried to leave. Masentaja eager to show Thob wasn’t the only hero in Gatelightning charged outside after them and cut down two of the goblins before the rest caught him in a hail of arrows. When we recovered the body we found he’d been shot through both lungs and the heart before he died. His action bought enough time for the caravan guards to get outside and kill the remaining goblins.

While everyone was trying to listen to the fight and recover Masentaja a thief stole Mersethral the low iron boot menacing with spikes of halibut leather and somehow got away without being found.

Since the guard seemed depleted I chose a bunch of idle looking dwarves and told them they were now guards, they seemed happy enough to go off and start wrestling each other. I haven’t had the heart to replace the Captain yet.

After that winter was pretty quiet, we finished some more statues without further incidents but I’ve seen too many good dwarves die. There are nearly 1500 units of drink in the stores, still a dangerously low supply but it should buy the next overseer some time…

[Quick writeup, sorry no screenshots I'll try and figure out where the computer put them when I get home, PJ may want to consider reverting to the previous save since I managed to get two former overseers killed on my watch (sorry!), the fortress is still viable though. If you want to continue with this save I need to know where to send it soon as I'll be without internet for the next few days.]